Joe Btfsplk*

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza has identified five people Donald Trump might tap for vice president. As a service to our readers (all half dozen), we have been providing one-minute biographies of these five: Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, and last, long-time political hack,

under a cloud since the early 70s

Newt Gingrich, (Newton Leroy) representative from Georgia’s sixth congressional district 1979-1999, minority whip 1989-1995, and speaker of the house 1995-1999 before resigning under a cloud, reprimanded for an ethics violation.

     Like Trump Gingrich has been married three times, each following an affair and each to a younger woman than the woman before.*

     Before he became a professional, paid politician (before he became whatever he is now), Gingrich taught history and geography at West Georgia College. Denied tenure he left in 1978. But then he did get the House gig.

     We should say that the former speaker’s divorces and re-marriages were the result of, as he pointed out in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, “how passionately [he feels] about this country.”

     Cillizza writes that Gingrich was “a relatively early supporter of Trump,” having the kind of rubbery ethical spine the presumptive candidate appreciates. On the other hand, a fervent admirer of Dick Cheney, whose rubbery spine was made of linked steel, Gingrich may hope . . . .

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*With apologies to the Al Capp character, who though he was the world’s worst jinx was also always well-meaning.

**His first wife – also his high school geometry teacher – was seven years Gingrich’s senior.